


Deserving

by RebaK1tten



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Family Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Peter deserves nice things, Steter Monthly Prompt, The Steter Network Monthly Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 19:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebaK1tten/pseuds/RebaK1tten
Summary: Stiles shakes his knife at Peter, “No. No, Peter, that’s not what we do. We carve pumpkins and roast the seeds and wear a family costume. That’s what our family does.”Fluffity fluff for the "orange" prompt.





	Deserving

Peter looks out the living room window and watches the trees blow in the wind. He has to admit it, autumn in northern California is beautiful. While he’s a fan of spring, autumn is for Stiles. The leaves are yellow, orange and red, and starting to fall, still bright and crunchy when they walk together to the park. Through the window, beyond the trees he sees the evergreens that announce the start of the preserve. The window’s open as it usually is if Peter’s home; one of his quirks, probably, and Stiles doesn’t complain about Peter’s need for fresh air.

He looks at his family, sitting on the floor in front of him and mutters, “I don’t deserve this.”

“Oh, come on, Peter, it’s not that bad,” his mate says, waving a knife at him. “We won’t get pumpkin guts on the rug.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s…” he sighs and shrugs one shoulder.

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him, and says, “Come on down here, we need your help.”

Peter moves to the floor and sits cross-legged on the plastic sheet spread out in front of the sofa. “What do you need?”

“Well first of all, can you take that chunk of pumpkin out of Drew’s mouth, please?”

Their daughter drops the soggy pumpkin chunk on her own and does her stumble-run towards Peter, trusting that he won’t let her fall. And of course, he doesn’t.

“Are you helping Daddy decorate for Halloween? He goes overboard, doesn’t he?” Peter keeps a hand near her back in case she needs help turning around. The walking is still new to her and she has trouble with turning and stopping, much like her father.

“Come on, you love it,” Stiles says, turning his pumpkin to show Peter. He has the eyes carved out, and they are, in fact, good. Stiles loves the fall holidays and as soon as October 1 rolls around, he starts putting out more and more Halloween items until their house looks like a holiday amusement park, full of cobwebs, pumpkins and of course, strings of twinkling lights. Lots and lots of twinkling lights. And soon after that, he starts for Thanksgiving. There’s fewer cobwebs, more autumn leaves and statues of foxes and deer, and even an occasional wolf. Christmas starts the Friday after Thanksgiving and although the colors change, the enthusiasm does not.

Black and orange changes to orange, yellow and red, which changes to red, white and green.

“How can I help?” Peter asks, letting go of Drew’s hands so she can waddle back to his other father. “How many are these are you carving?”

“There’s two white ones and two orange ones. And then there’s the little guys because they’re cute. I won’t carve them – hey, can you draw scary faces on those? Scary, Peter, not cute.” He hands over a pack of Sharpies. “Or, you can start cleaning out that one,” he points to the orange pumpkin and a butcher knife.

“Sure.” He turns the pumpkin upside down on his lap and pushes the knife in.

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to carve off the top and clean it out!” Stiles cries, throwing his hands up. “Jack o’lantern, remember?”

“Yes. And you open up the bottom, and clean it out and then put it down _over_ the light. But your way is fine, too,” Peter replies, smiling smugly. “It’s good I’m here, I can be sure our daughter learns the right way to do things.”

Drew looks up, and giggles, flashing her bright yellow eyes at Peter. He blinks bright blue and she giggles even harder.

Peter looks from Drew to Stiles, smiling at his husband’s soft expression when he looks at their daughter. They never expected a child and hadn’t even talked about adopting at this point. Then Chris Argent shows up with little Drew, four months old and orphaned when her pack was taken out by hunters. Peter didn’t ask what happened to the hunters, but Chris is (finally) very serious about following the code. He was surprised when Derek suggested he and Stiles raise the little girl. He knows it was only suggested because of Stiles, and he’s okay with that – he wouldn’t trust himself alone with a baby either. But now they have her and there’s no way he’s going to let anyone take her or hurt her or Stiles.

“Well, okay, I’ll allow that,” Stiles says. “Just put the guts over there in the stack, so I can get the seeds. And I’ll toast them later.”

“Stiles, I can buy pumpkin seeds and…”

Stiles shakes his knife at Peter, “No. No, Peter, that’s not what we do. We carve pumpkins and roast the seeds and wear a family costume. That’s what our family does.”

“We did the costume thing last year – we did it one time. Is this something we’re going to do every year?” Peter asks, and pulls Drew away from the pile of pumpkin innards.

“Yup, that’s a tradition now. So this year, I’m going to be Little Red Riding Hood, and you’re going to be – get this – the huntsman and Drew here is going to be the cutest lil wolf anyone’s ever seen.” Stiles grins and stabs his pumpkin to start carving its mouth.

“You’re going to dress my daughter as a wolf? I guess we’d just ignore when her eyes light up and her claws appear.” Peter reaches over and pulls one of the little pumpkins out of her mouth, looking at the four tiny holes from her fangs.

She glares at him and growls until Peter lets his eyes glow and he growls out, “No. You do _not_ do that with your parents.”

Drew lowers her head and whimpers, scooting closer to Peter until he picks her up and rubs their cheeks together. “It’s okay, baby, just don’t growl at your daddies again.”

“You’re so good with her, Peter. See, I wouldn’t know what to do if she did that to me or… Or tried to eat a pumpkin,” Stiles says and Peter smells his love and contentment and the scent of his family.

“You’d figure it out; you’ve always had good instincts.” He sets Drew down and looks at one of the mini-pumpkins. “We can work around this – maybe the fang marks were an intentional part of the decoration.”

“And fangs would be part of her costume. Whaddaya think?”

“I think if we go to see people who know us, it’s fine. I won’t risk it with someone else.”

Stiles shakes his head, concern in his eyes and confusion in his scent. “No, of course not. I’m thinking the pack and you know, my Dad and Melissa and those guys.”

“That’s fine then,” Peter says. He has a small chunk of pumpkin and is holding one end of it while Drew makes a face and chews on the other end. “I remember one Thanksgiving when Cora was about her age, maybe a little older, and she was attacking everything and chewing on everything.” He takes the mangled pumpkin out of her mouth and quickly cuts off another strip with a claw. “Talia made a small turkey, only a little bigger than a chicken. She waited until it cooled off and then we went outside and she gave it to Cora, who just attacked it.” He smiles, kissing Drew’s head. “Had her claws in it and was kicking the crap out of it with her back feet. After she ‘killed it’ she ate a pretty good portion of it.” They both watch as Drew spits out the pumpkin and walks back to Stiles, arms out, confident that he’ll pick her up.

“That sounds pretty awesome. I can’t wait to tell Cora about this,” Stiles says, rubbing his cheek on Drew’s head, adding to her scent as though he’s a wolf himself.

“Hmm, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. There were pictures…” he sighs and shrugs. “After Cora finished with it, Derek and Daniel ate the rest of it in about five minutes, bones and all.”

Stiles watches, making sure Peter doesn’t drift too far in his memories, thinking of lost family. “I know holidays can be difficult, but…I thought we should make our own traditions. Like the pumpkins and decorating and things.”

Peter takes a breath and snatches his daughter before she lands in the pumpkin goo. “I’d like that, too. I think some things from your family and some from mine and some of our own.”

“Okay, maybe we should talk about whatever has you – whatever it is, why you’re distant tonight?” Stiles picks up a pen and pumpkin, sketching what he’ll carve, to give Peter a chance to think without being stared at. It’s something unspoken they’ve agreed to.  “I mean seriously, Peter. I told you I was dressing up as Red Riding Hood, and you didn’t inquire about my underpants, which is not like you. So talk to me, you big, broody wolf.”

Peter looks at his family for a long minute, watching their daughter as she curls up next to his mate, finally exhausted after an evening of playing. He gestures to the scene in front of him, and says, “I don’t deserve this. This – this isn’t what I should have. I’m the villain, Stiles. I shouldn’t have this, I’m supposed to die in the last reel.”

A smile plays at Stiles’ lips, but he knows Peter’s serious. “Peter, there’s two things to think about. One, we are not even near the last reel. You and me and our daughter – and if she has kids – we have a long time to go before the last reel. You’re going to live to be 150 and when you finally die, I’ll die the day after you.” He pauses and makes sure Peter’s looking at him, really looking at him. “Because I don’t want to not be taking care of you and I don’t want to be without you. But that’s a long way off.” Stiles carefully moves around everything on the plastic sheet until he’s in front on Peter, holding his hand. “And the second thing is, you already died in the first reel. So this… this is the villain’s redemption arc. You were awful and you got killed and came back to life a better person. And you did good things for people and now you get the good stuff. Anti-hero kind of stuff.”

Peter lifts Stiles’ hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles, feeling a flash through their bond, a warm, welcome fire in his chest. “Yes, you should remember the killing, sweetheart. But one hundred fifty? I think you’re over estimating me.”

“Since no one really knows how old you are, it could happen.” Stiles looks behind him, where Drew’s fallen asleep, little orange pumpkin clasped in her hand. “I like our family and the traditions we’re building. It took a while to get here, but I like this stuff, especially with you two.”

“I do, too. And so will Drew.” Peter sweeps up his daughter as he unfolds from the floor, and holds out a hand for Stiles. “I think rather than a whole bath, we just try to get the majority of goop off her. Bath tomorrow when she’s awake.”

“Sounds like a plan. And no offense to her, but I’ll be able to power through this stuff now that she’s asleep.” They head towards the bathroom and Stiles says, “A whole turkey? That would be really fun, maybe we should do that.”

“Hmm, let’s get through one holiday at a time. So… red lacy panties maybe?”

“Such a wolf,” Stiles chuckles. “Glad you’re my wolf.”


End file.
